Commentary on the news, culture, sports and current events of sub-Saharan Africa from someone who's lived there.

The author served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Republic of Guinea, West Africa.

All essays are available for re-print, with the explicit permission of the author. Contact him at mofycbsj @ yahoo.com

Friday, February 24, 2006

What's going on the northern Central African Republic?

It's often in humanitarian circles that when there are serious problems in remote areas, often the first indicator to the outside world is refugee flows. By that standard, something fishy is happening in parts of the Central African Republic (CAR) but it's not exactly clear what.

The UN's IRIN service reports that: Men, women and children from the Central African Republic are continuing to flee into Chad daily, with at least 4,000 pouring in so far this month to escape violence that refugees say has killed 50 people in February alone, and shows no signs of subsiding, the UN refugee agency said.

The UN News Service indicates that: The northern party of the [Central African] republic is becoming increasingly volatile and refugees report they are being attacked by bandits, government forces who suspect they are supporting rebel groups and rebel groups who raid their villages for food and cattle and recruit young men.

The UN indiciated that already some 43,000 refugees from the CAR are already being taken care of in southern Chad.

The BBC's sources tell them of a nascent rebellion against the CAR government of General Francois Bozize.

The region is already unstable, with genocide in the eastern Sudanese region of Darfur, political domestic turmoil in Chad, hundreds of thousands of Darfur refugees in Chad and border tension between Chad and Sudan.

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About Me

The author is a freelance writer and journalist who lives in upstate New York. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Republic of Guinea (Conakry), West Africa, in the mid-90s. He is also fluent in French.
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L'auteur est un journaliste et écrivain qui habite le nord de l'Etat de New York. Il fut volontaire professeur de maths au sein du Corps de la Paix américain; il serva en République de Guinée (Conakry) en Afrique de l'Ouest dans les années 90.